Indeed, Amazon has the ecosystem (music, books, apps, videos) to rival Apple. The interesting thing is that their ecosystem overlaps with iOS (and Mac OS). I don't see Apple developing iTunes apps for Android. So, effectively, Amazon remains a contents-centric company, while Apple is a hardware-centric company. Amazon is now selling hardware to ensure control over distribution of its contents. Apple distributes contents to ensure interesting and relevant contents for its hardware.

Price point is the key! If the Amazon tablet is cheap they will fly off the shelves! Not sure the OS will make a difference to the average consumer, I still think if they cost the same as the iPad then they will still purchase an iPad!

See Maylong tablet.
And yeah, OS makes a difference. Unless of course the "average consumer" sees tablets as a bag of hardware specs to be touted to their friends to prop up their self esteem

I certainly like and use my iPad. However, I am also hopeful for the success of the upcoming Amazon tablets.

I believe competition is good for the marketplace - and will keep Apple moving at a faster rate for all of us. Furthermore, I believe Amazon's focus will be somewhat similar to Apple's - a focus on the overall experience - and not just on the raw technology. Unlike the tech only Android providers, Amazon also has a tremendous amount of content to offer. As for actual pricing, it might chose to follow the razor/razor blade model - giving it a leg up on price.

Of course, the tablet would have to be up to its part of the experience. We shall soon see.

What do you think is the reason for the differences between Nielsen's data and NMS's? How do their methodologies differ?

One suggestion has been that perhaps Android users are running apps more than the browser. I don't know if that's the case and I haven't seen any studies on that (though it would be interesting to learn of any if you know of them), but it would account for the numbers from those companies that count only browser user-agents. Looking at my own usage patterns, I see that most of my HTTP traffic is from apps, using the browser only when there's no app available.

Another factor may be that perhaps Android users visit the same domains more frequently than iOS users, who might be visiting a wider variety of sites. I'm not asserting this is the case, I simply don't know, but at the NMS site they explain that they only count a given visitor once per day, and I tend to visit a relatively small number of sites frequently throughout the day, often revisiting sites more often than I go to a new one.

Anything else that might account for these differences?

Actually with regard to app usage, I would have assumed that the average iPhone user consumes data via an app at a higher percentage than Android users. One has to consider though whether or not we're talking raw bits or web traffic. One streamed video from a viewer (e.g. iPhones Youtube app) can easily outweigh weeks of casual surfing from a data usage POV. As well, if Android users are more likely to utilize streaming music services since iPhone users will tend to have more music loaded on their phones, then that would show up as more data usage. Now in the end, the bigger question is "what does it mean", and in reality the answer is nothing from a broader perspective, though the numbers do have meanings when you're looking at very specific trends.

I really don't know for certain how they present it to a customer. A few customers who contracted with them would have to answer how it's marketed. In reality all the "free phone" offers are actually defrayed cost over the contract term. None are really free.

Yes - but the point here is that they still charge for the handset up front, and then if you spend enough they give you some kind of discount that is supposed to add up to some fraction of the cost of the phone over time. This promotion appears to be a way to hook customers on more expensive plans. That's different to giving you a free handset and then hiding the cost of it in the monthly charges.

Yes - but the point here is that they still charge for the handset up front, and then if you spend enough they give you some kind of discount that is supposed to add up to some fraction of the cost of the phone over time. This promotion appears to be a way to hook customers on more expensive plans. That's different to giving you a free handset and then hiding the cost of it in the monthly charges.

That could be how they're actually doing the transaction. I dunno. The provider apparently marketed the iPhone as free, thus the news articles.

But in any case, it's plainly obvious the iPhones are great devices and have had phenomenal sales. My initial post was pointing out that the iPhone is also offered free in other markets, something a poster wasn't aware of, and purchase decisions are based on more than just the price as evidenced by Japan's consumer's. No dissing of Apple's product intended.

When comparing phone sales divvied up by OS, it makes little sense to add in other product categories.

For example, if one were to compare computer OS sales, one would not include the zillions of devices running Windows Embedded.

It all depends on what you're doing.

If you're a developer selling an app, then adding in ALL iOS devices compared to ALL Android devices might make sense.

If you're a phone manufacturer, then the number of phones sold by platform probably makes the most sense (but this would be meaningless since a phone manufacturer would not have the ability to choose iOS, anyway).

If you're a handset case manufacturer, then the number of phones from each vendor is what matters - with no regard to the OS.

If you're a developer of software that is only meaningful on phones, then the number of phones by OS matters.

If you're an investor, you might look at PROFITS from handset sales - where the iPhone wins handily.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quash

Fact: No single Android phone outsells the iPhone

Fact: All android phones are the market outsell the iPhone

Fact: Android OS is more widespread than the iPhone OS

Fact: Once again, no single android phone outsells the iPhone

You're 3 for 4. The bolded portion is wrong. Since the iPad and iPod touch use the iPhone OS, the number of devices running iPhone OS is greater than the number of devices running Android OS.

Clickbait headline (not surprising that your comprehension never got past the large letters at the top of the page. If you actually read the article, iPhone market share is flat or increasing, depending on how it's measured. There's certainly nothing that suggests that the iPhone is dead in the water.

"I'm way over my head when it comes to technical issues like this"Gatorguy 5/31/13

What everyone seems to be ignoring is that Amazon is very intentionally not trying to compete with the iPad.

It's blindingly obvious that the NookColor -- the tablet/reader marketed by what is, after all, Amazon's actual chief competitor, and which is the second best-selling tablet after the iPad -- is the target of the Amazon tablet.

The AmaTab has little memory. No cameras. A 7" screen and a $249 pricetag. These are exactly the same specs as a NC.

The NC comes from a bookstore, and is marketed as "the reader's tablet." Its UI is designed to be a front end for B&N's online retail operation, and (without rooting) it is limited to apps available from B&N.

Similarly, the Amazon product simply leverages its own digital offerings -- which are of course much richer and more varied than B&N's -- into a device. Prime streaming video. Cloud-based music and storage. A custom storefront. The Kindle Store. The Amazon App Store.

All of the hype surrounding the AmaTab lately has been generated by Internet tech writers who have managed to completely misunderstand the marketing thrust of the device, its capabilities, and who it's for. It's for people who would have bought a NookColor, and for Amazon fanpeeps.

If you're unfamiliar with these whores, I'll give you a little backstory. These are the guys who claimed they had seen a completely redesigned Mac Pro before the Nehalem line was released.

Black metal, entirely new case, new internals (larger, more SATA, PCIe, and 12 RAM slots), and all new ports on the outside. Huge article about how they had seen one.

And then the second it was released, they took all that out of the article (which was months old by that time) except for one paragraph stating that they had seen one before launch and it matched what Apple released exactly.

Also, their pages refreshed every 30 seconds automatically for more ad views.

Don't get me wrong: I have nothing against TechCrunch at all. But when someone claims to have seen something before release, writes about it, and doesn't bother to post any spy shots, I immediately have a PTSD-style flashback to MacOSRumors' article and instantly ignore anything they say.

Price point is the key! If the Amazon tablet is cheap they will fly off the shelves! Not sure the OS will make a difference to the average consumer, I still think if they cost the same as the iPad then they will still purchase an iPad!

Given that we haven't actually seen the UI for Amazons tablet I'd say it's to soon to decide if it will fail or not.

Kindle is a success and there marketing has been good enough to turn it into a device you want despite not knowing why. If the UI is good and they can match it with marketing then it could work. Every other tablet has awful marketing, most of the population don't even know they exist.

Exactly what I thought when I read that. Netbook market fell down because:
a) netbooks are near useless and;
b) tablets (more specifically, iPad) provided a more portable and better performing alternative for the same price point.

The only reason netbooks got any lead was because they were cheap as hell and nothing at that price point was available in such a small, easy to carry package at the time.

Either they are careless with them since they aren't that precious or they are not very durable, or maybe it is because they can't update them, probably easier to get a new phone than try to upgrade the OS.

What everyone seems to be ignoring is that Amazon is very intentionally not trying to compete with the iPad.

It's blindingly obvious that the NookColor -- the tablet/reader marketed by what is, after all, Amazon's actual chief competitor, and which is the second best-selling tablet after the iPad -- is the target of the Amazon tablet.

The AmaTab has little memory. No cameras. A 7" screen and a $249 pricetag. These are exactly the same specs as a NC.

The NC comes from a bookstore, and is marketed as "the reader's tablet." Its UI is designed to be a front end for B&N's online retail operation, and (without rooting) it is limited to apps available from B&N.

Similarly, the Amazon product simply leverages its own digital offerings -- which are of course much richer and more varied than B&N's -- into a device. Prime streaming video. Cloud-based music and storage. A custom storefront. The Kindle Store. The Amazon App Store.

All of the hype surrounding the AmaTab lately has been generated by Internet tech writers who have managed to completely misunderstand the marketing thrust of the device, its capabilities, and who it's for. It's for people who would have bought a NookColor, and for Amazon fanpeeps.

good lord, someone who pays attention to what is actually happening! rare indeed ... welcome.

i expect the Amazon tab will sell decently, if it is easy to use. they will certainly push it hard and the price is within reach of more people. but it's still just a 7" Amazon appliance - a niche product. the total of potential tablet buyers who are heavily focused on Amazon as their media source (other than books) is modest. it won't offer the Google cloud services that draw buyers to other Android tablets. its screen is too small to be a great shopping tablet, or anything browser-dependent. you'll still use your computer for that.

i'm one of those who believe the tweener 7" tablet size is inherently a niche market. either too big or too small for most uses and most users. if you can only afford one gadget, it's going to be a smartphone and you just cope with the small screen size. but it's all-in-one for all uses and easily portable. if you can afford two gadgets, the second one is going to target something it does a lot better for you than your phone. and for most people, a signficantly larger screen size is the first obvious advantage in that regard.

so i think Amazon would be foolish to make 4 million 7" Kindle tabs, especially a v.1 model. look what happened to Samsung's 2 million 7" v.1 Galaxy tabs a year ago - a huge flop (launched at $600, now $283 at Amazon with plenty of stock left). but it can actually do quite a bit more than the Amazon tab will. Amazon should start with a small run and learn from that before scaling up production with the improved - maybe bigger - v.2 model.

What do you think is the reason for the differences between Nielsen's data and NMS's? How do their methodologies differ?

One suggestion has been that perhaps Android users are running apps more than the browser. I don't know if that's the case and I haven't seen any studies on that (though it would be interesting to learn of any if you know of them), but it would account for the numbers from those companies that count only browser user-agents. Looking at my own usage patterns, I see that most of my HTTP traffic is from apps, using the browser only when there's no app available.

Another factor may be that perhaps Android users visit the same domains more frequently than iOS users, who might be visiting a wider variety of sites. I'm not asserting this is the case, I simply don't know, but at the NMS site they explain that they only count a given visitor once per day, and I tend to visit a relatively small number of sites frequently throughout the day, often revisiting sites more often than I go to a new one.

Anything else that might account for these differences?

Measuring HTTP traffic measures the time spent surfing the web via WebApps and other apps for HTTP related content.

If you're unfamiliar with these whores, I'll give you a little backstory. These are the guys who claimed they had seen a completely redesigned Mac Pro before the Nehalem line was released.

Black metal, entirely new case, new internals (larger, more SATA, PCIe, and 12 RAM slots), and all new ports on the outside. Huge article about how they had seen one.

And then the second it was released, they took all that out of the article (which was months old by that time) except for one paragraph stating that they had seen one before launch and it matched what Apple released exactly.

Also, their pages refreshed every 30 seconds automatically for more ad views.

Don't get me wrong: I have nothing against TechCrunch at all. But when someone claims to have seen something before release, writes about it, and doesn't bother to post any spy shots, I immediately have a PTSD-style flashback to MacOSRumors' article and instantly ignore anything they say.

oh come on. Amazon itself gave Siegler a hands-on quick look, to boost some hype of course (and boy did he ever gush). he didn't make it up and it's not a fake.

Similar things were said about Android phones. Now they outsell iOS phones.

Time will tell. Nobody knows the future.

Can't tell if trolling or just stupid

Android SOFTWARE has a larger market share than iOS, but only in Smartphones.
iPhone HARDWARE outsells every device on the market and by a considerable margin.

Here is some food for thought
Laptops are a different class of device to a desktop computer, professional workstation and dedicated server, yet are still factored in when calculating the market share of OSX, Windows, Linux et al. So why not factor tablets into the iOS and Android market share? Both are portable media consumption and communication devices running the same operating systems. Differentiating between the two is useless. Throw iPads into the mix and it is a very likely that Android would slip into second place within the quarter, if it hasn't already given the number of iPads being sold.

Here is some food for thought
Throw iPads into the mix and it is a very likely that Android would slip into second place within the quarter, if it hasn't already given the number of iPads being sold.

Throwing iPads in the mix would help, but those numbers don't even come close to the volume of smartphone activations. With Google claiming upwards of 600K activations per day, you'd have to see iPad sales in the 10's of millions every month to get in striking range.

Don't get me wrong: I have nothing against TechCrunch at all. But when someone claims to have seen something before release, writes about it, and doesn't bother to post any spy shots, I immediately have a PTSD-style flashback to MacOSRumors' article and instantly ignore anything they say.

I have no reason to doubt that specific writer, or to accuse him of lying. Some of his biases are well known, but this piece was presented as straight reporting.

The timing of it -- in the wake of the hysteria over the Forrester forecast of 3-5 million AmaTabs selling in 4Q, with absolutely no sense of what the product would actually be -- had all the earmarks of an intentional unofficial leak by Amazon for purposes of expectation control. The rumor mill was affecting their stock price and setting them up for a crash; reigning back expectations to a more realistic scale seems like a smart strategy, and giving one credible but unconnected writer a look at a prototype and permission to write about it seems like the sort of thing notoriously tight-lipped Amazon would do.